Finding power and praise in life's pits

Many drive Toyotas for good reason. Toyotas are world renowned for their dependability. The reason Toyotas are maybe the world's most dependable cars are because their individuals parts have greater tolerance and durability than those of competing vehicles. One of the joys of our journey we tend to not embrace is the privilege of allowing Christ the opportunity and time to build our tolerance level. Many of you like me are wimps at our best and in need of God's infusion of strength and grace if we're to portray the strength of Christ the way we ought. God seeks to shower grace into our spirits and endue us with the strength we need to experience joy amidst life's problems and pains. Before Paul could speak of his ability to do everything through Christ, His strength; He spoke of the training God gave him to build his tolerance. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little, Phili. 4:12 (NLT) Paul understood that weakness is the gateway to finding our true worth and rejoicing; for genuine joy is not in passing things or our feeble strength but in Christ. God desires us to live with His imprint, REJOICING. As He crafts us in the crucible of reproach, criticism, and need; let's see by faith the outpouring of character, tolerance, and strength He's infusing into our lives. As they say, no pain, no gain. Welcome the growing pains Christ engineers into your experience and you'll have the testimony of Paul, Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again-rejoice! Phili. 4:4 (NLT).

The highway to happiness

We all want to be happy, but few of us live in the reality that happiness or unhappiness is a byproduct of our heart's condition. As we live obedient to God's requirements, we know joy; then, as Charles Finney says, we stumble on happiness regularly in our path. Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians paints a highway you and I must travel if our desire is to know joy that will be the envy of our friends. In 2 Cor. 2:3b he says, Surely you all know that my joy comes from your being joyful (NLT). God designed us to live on His high octane fuel, joy. As we're filled up daily with His fuel, we know no knock (the problem new engines experience when they run on lower octane fuels). So how do we fill up on joy? The passage is clear, we must live for the joy of others. We understand this well from our feelings at Christmas time. Contrary to what we thought, the greatest Christmases we experienced were the ones we spent giving selflessly to others. There's a exclusive joy and happiness which is caught only by a giver. We were made to give not get; getting provides temporal gratification; but giving measureless joy. God help us fulfill our born design, to live like His Son, who lived to give, knowing the joy that would follow His giving, your salvation and mine (Hebrews 12:1).